


The Left Behind

by mangagal



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ba Sing Se, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Jet/Zuko - Freeform, Jetko, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 01:33:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangagal/pseuds/mangagal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lee is nowhere to be found and Jet remembers the things he loved and hated about him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This is my first fan-fic, I hope you enjoy it. Please let me know what you think, comments are always welcome but please be kind!

Jet lay curled up in the spot where Lee use to sleep.  He pressed his face into the pillow and breathed in his sent of tea, sweat, and that musky sooty sent that always-lingered on Lee’s skin.  Jet clutched the pillow to his as he held back the massive sobs that threatened to break free.

            He had truly loved the troubled refugee; in a way that he hadn’t loved anyone in a long time.  He had loved the way that the corner of Lee’s mouth would pull up into a smirk of a smile when Jet did something endearing and he thought that Jet couldn’t see.  He love his hair, the short buzz cut that he would skim his hand over, tracing the shape of Lee’s skull, and the longer locks that Jet was allowed to run his hands through and tangle his fingers in to pull Lee’s face to his.  Jet love his pale skin that seemed to glow under the light of the moon and his honey eyes that would flash with amusement or anger, or, very occasionally, grow soft when he gazed at Jet.  He loved how he hid his affection for his uncle under a gruff manner and he had loved when he had started treating Jet that way.  Jet loved how Lee had been home, had been his safe house, how nothing could hurt him when he was wrapped in Lees arms.  He had loved how nothing could hurt Lee when he was tangled up is the coarse sheets sleeping soundly next to Jet.  He had loved how Lee had trusted him enough to sleep nest to him.  He even loved his sudden anger that would leave them screaming in each others faces and throwing things at the walls and at each other, but he mainly loved those arguments because it meant that later Lee would crawl into bed next to him and apologize with soft kisses and even softer words. He loved how Lee could lead him out of nightmares with gentle touches and careful words and promises that he would be there, how he’d hold Jet until he stopped shaking and a new day had begun.    Jet especially loved the way that Lee could unravel him in a way that no one else had ever been able to, all it took was a single word or a lingering touch, and Jet would come undone in Lee’s arms.

            However, there were also some things that Jet had hated about Lee.  Jet hated how Lee would go into his black moods and shut Jet out for days until he would emerge looking small and depleted and Jet would pull him into a hug and tell him that everything would be alright and whisper encouragements into Lee’s shaggy hair until he fell asleep.  He hated how Lee kept all his problems to himself, how he never let Jet know what was really happening inside of his head.  He hated how Lee never trusted him enough to tell Jet about his past.  But what he hated the most was the way that life had treated his Lee.  He hated whoever had given Lee that scar and the way that Lee would run his fingers along it delicately, when he thought no one could see, and would look so incredibly sad. 

He hated whoever had looked after Lee before his Uncle Mushi, how they had filled him with self-doubt, self-loathing and a sense of worthlessness.  They had once gotten into an augment, Jet couldn’t even remember what it had been about, and Jet had called Lee useless, something Jet regrets even now.  All Lee had done in response to that was pull one of those bitter smiles he was so good at, “I know,” he’d said quietly, and that broke Jet’s heart.  He knew it couldn’t have been Lee’s fat jolly Uncle who had made him that way; Mushi obviously thought that Lee was wonderful.  The way that he softly smiled a Lee and teased him good naturedly, how he constantly made Lee tea and bowls of noodles when he wouldn’t eat, how he worried about his nephews wellbeing constantly, and that sage advice that made no sense, those were the ways of a kind and loving parent, not the ways of someone who makes their child feel worthless.

Once Jet and Uncle had been sitting out under the moonlight after Lee had closed himself in his room.  Mushi had let out a soft sigh, “I will never understand how some people can treat their child, the most precious thing they have on earth, like they do not matter.”  Jet couldn’t understand it either.

But the thing that he hated the most right now was not knowing where the hell they had gone.  He had shown up one afternoon as he always did and had let himself into their apartment to wait for them to get home from the teashop.  After waiting a few hours in vain for them to show up, he had gone back to the apartment that he shared with Longshot and Smellerbee in a right foul mood.

“Hey Jet,” Smellerbee called out from the kitchen, “I thought you were staying at Lee’s tonight?” 

“No one was there!” Jet growled as he slammed the door shut.

Jet had gone back to wait in their apartment the next afternoon only to discover that most of there things were gone, the tapestries off the walls, the little shrine they had set up in a corner, most of the dishes, their clothes, the little things that made this cruddy apartment a cozy home, they were all gone.  He had raced down to the teashop and interrogated the owner of that disgusting hole in the wall, but the idiot insisted that the two of them had never shown up for work yesterday and that he hadn’t seen them since.  Jet had torn through the apartment looking for any clue of their whereabouts but he hadn’t found anything, not even a note.

So as Jet lay curled up on Lee’s bed, clutching the pillow that still smelled of Lee he couldn’t figure out which would be worse.  On one hand, Lee and his Uncle could have been captured by the Dai Li and were being held in prison.  On the other hand, Lee and his Uncle could have just left and moved somewhere else.  Jet didn’t know what was worse, them being in trouble some where and he couldn’t protect them, that he had told Lee that he would keep them safe and he had failed them, or that they had left him behind and didn’t think that he was important enough to tell or to take with them. 

Jet turned to face the wall and let the tears he had been holding back escape his eyes.  He buried his face in the pillow and let the cheep material soak up his tears.

“I really love you, I hope you know that.”


End file.
